


Il était une fois

by Uniasus



Series: When the World Shifts [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, F/M, Headcanon, Limited Internet research, Made Up History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uniasus/pseuds/Uniasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, there seven of them. Now it's only the two of them in their right mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Il était une fois

The world got dark. Someone, somewhere was creating more akuma then all seven of them could handle. War had broken out, the Great War, that involved countries all over Europe. There was nothing the Miraculous Team could do. Too many targets, too many akuma, too much fallout. It was bigger then them all. So they combined.

Elizabeth brought out the black box and one by one placed the Miraculous inside. Red earrings. A black ring. A green bracelet. A blue broach. A purple pendant. A yellow barrette. An orange choker.

"Are you sure about this?" Elizabeth asked. "You kept us away from each other for years. You didn't want the stones near each other and you didn't want us to know who the others were."

She stares at her kwami. Tikki's eyes are desperate.

"There is nothing else we can do. We have tried to fight as a team. We weren't strong enough. This is a last resort."

"What will happen?" Ashley asked, his eyes seeking Plagg's.

"The box will merge us. We will become one Miraculous Stone instead of seven. One of you will transform and we will stop the war."

"And after that?"

"And after that, we will go our separate ways and only deal with naturally occurring evil spirits."

"Stay safe," Elizabeth said. All seven kwami nodded.

"You too," Tikki said. "We don't know how long we will be one. The transformation will not wear out as it does now. It could be days, it could be weeks. But we will find you when it's over."

She flew over to hover above the pair of earrings. "Come," she told her fellow spirits and one by one they said good bye to their humans. When they were all perched on the Stone they were a part of, Elizabeth slammed the box shut.

* * *

The box was still, silent. Seven teens from all over the world stared at it until the box left Elizabeth's hands to float in the air before them. It began to spin. Faster and faster, the gold dots on the faces blurring and the gold design on top losing it's intricate design. When it stopped spinning, it was no longer a box before them but rather a a gray helmet.

"Who should wear it?" Leslie asked.

"I think I should. It's staring at me." Ashley took it in his hands. The wood had turned to metal. Slowly, he put it on his head. The helmet shrunk to fit.

"Who do you call to transform?"

"Try 'Miraculous'," Elizabeth suggested.

He did and it worked.

* * *

Someone was manipulating the pure spirit embodiments of emotions, turning them evil and sending them out to infect people. It had never been like that. Akuma had formed naturally from pent-up negative emotions. Now they were made, made from captured spirits, and it was his job to purify them all and set the world right. No time for rest. Fight and win. And then he could sleep.

* * *

It hadn't taken days. Or weeks. Or even months. It had taken years to stop the war.

It had been too long. Things had changed. The room he had woken up in was gone, bombed. The brief memory he had of friends faded. His real name had faded. What was left was to save the world. His mission.

The war was over, but the negative feelings remained. He had to get to all the akuma.

* * *

He had failed. Twice. The festering feelings of the Great War were too big for him to handle. Too extreme. He hadn't gotten all the akuma and now those affected led Germany.

It was World War II.

* * *

He didn't know how he recognized her, but he did. She was much older, with haunted eyes and hollow cheeks. Her hair was thin, her smile gone. It must of been the way she moved that caught his attention.

She wore a yellow star on her jacket.

He didn't remember her real name, wasn't sure he had ever known it, but he remembered calling her My Butterfly. Remembered her with a purple broach pining a half cloak on her shoulder that would _snap_ as they lept off a building. He remembers, above all things, loving her.

And when he sees her shot in her own home two nights later, he snaps.

* * *

He remembered crying. He remembered pain. He remembered a small dark butterfly coming to hit him in the chest and all the remnants of his memory disappearing. All that's left was to get revenge for the what happened to her.

He knew about spirits, knew how the butterflies of the world were dying as people gave into despair. He collected them, so he always knew where they were, and learned to infect them with his own dark emotions.

He was going to make the world pay for losing her.

Not just her. Six others he could not find.

The years he had lost he wasn't supposed to.

The third Reich fell to violence, Jews ripped their jailers apart by hand, and he looked around at a world still not healed. There were akuma out there, his and the natural ones (and had there been another person?). But he was tired. He had gone years without sleep, without a recharge, and his body collapsed into slumber.

* * *

She didn't know much, just that time had passed. A lot of time. More time then should have. She needed to find someone, a girl, the current Ladybug. But she was stuck. She couldn't move.

::Plagg?::

::Here::

She paused. She had only halfway expected an answer, and even then not one as fast as that.

::What's going on?::

::We combined. My human wore the helmet::

::Is the war over? Is it time to leave?::

::Yes, but Tikki. I can't::

::What do you mean, you can't?::

::I mean I tried. We are aware of our different selves. We as a whole are sleeping. The transformation should have powered down. But here we are, sharing thoughts. There is something wrong::

She thought for awhile and felt that Plagg was right.

::We'll have to force it::

She felt Plagg's wince. Forcing a transformation to end, against the standard rules of energy use and a willing dispel, were never kind on the human they had transformed. But like Plagg said, something was wrong. They should be in separate bodies, or at least resting in their associated Miraculous Stones.

::Okay::

* * *

They were more then Tikki and Plagg, Ladybug and Chat Noir. They were ying and yang, order and chaos, the world in balance and that meant they were able to do things together they couldn't do alone.

Part of that included breaking free of the group merger. It didn't include breaking it unscathed.

* * *

There was a man a lying on his side. He was breathing deeply, face covered by a metallic mask attached to a help she recognized. She didn't know why the helmet didn't break into seven kwami. She didn't know why even though he was wearing their combined forms, the Butterfly Miraculous Stone was on his chest and was darker than she remembered. She didn't know why she was looking at a man instead of the child Ashley was supposed to be.

"Who's that?"

She turned to Plagg in shock. Certainly he remembered his old human, the Belgium boy who had worn the ring to become Zwarte Kat. He had known it was Ashley who put on the helmet, he had said it not a minute ago.

The expression on Plagg's face was one of confusion, he wasn't joking.

"Plagg, who do you think that is?"

"I don't know." He sounded scared. "Do you?"

"Yes."

"Who is he?"

"I think it's Ashley Horta."

"Who?"

"Plagg, what do you know?"

"That's silly, I know you. Your name is Tikki. And we are kwami charged with keeping the world safe. You transform humans in Ladybug and I turn them into Black Cat. Or at least, we're supposed to. I know that's what we're supposed to do, but I don't remember doing it."

She closed her eyes. Something had gone wrong. Something had gone very wrong. They were never supposed to work close by, not again, but she didn't see a choice. Plagg couldn't be by himself.

"That's right. Just checking. Thank you Plagg, I was feeling a little confused. We should go."

"Go where?" He started flying after her, glancing over his shoulder.

"First things first, food."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also on tumblr, but well, a bit of a heads up. Something in one of the subbed eps spawned a bunny, Hawk Moth said something along the lines of the Miraculous originally being his, about how he wasn't right without them, and so I turned him into....Captain Planet. Sorta. I know the current fan theory is that Hawk Moth is Adrien's dad but, that's not the case here.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this is totally an AU inspired by Captain Planet. By your kwamis combined, I am...Hawk Moth! Except he goes a little crazy. Obviously.


End file.
